I Turned Away
by Aisling-Siobhan
Summary: Frostiron Month 10: "Angry, and half in love with you, and tremendously sorry, I turned away" (F. Scott Fitzgerald). Loki leaves.


This is for the Frostiron Month Tumblr: Prompt 10.

July 28-31: Free For All: _Whatever you want and whatever you love! It's your choice_

"**I Turned Away"**

**Disclaimer: ** The Avengers, Tony, Loki, etc belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, et co. I make no money from this and own nothing, don't sue.

**Summary: ** [Tony/Loki] Frostiron Month 10: "Angry, and half in love with you, and tremendously sorry, I turned away" (F. Scott Fitzgerald). Loki leaves.

**Warnings: ** Slash. Loki/Tony. prompt: ffa. Loki leaves. Then comes back. Angst. Old age. Break up fic.

**Rating: ** PG15.

**A/N**: - I had another idea in mind, based on something I saw on Tumblr and then was asked for, but I'm saving that for the Frostiron Bang. So I saw this quote, and wanted some angst instead. Inspired in part by a scene from The Winter Soldier and, one of my own fics, Ophelia Dreams.

_XXX_

**Words: ** 2,509

**Chapter 1**

They fought, like all couples do. Full of loud words they didn't mean and angry hand gestures that would never lead to violence, and they made up as all couples do with sex and teary kisses. But some fights cannot be recovered from, some words remain as echoes in the mind, and Loki could do nothing to forget their last fight, Anthony's last words to him before he left Loki behind. Loki had watched him go, angry and bitter, hurt more than either, and silent because what could he say?

He had offered his mortal a golden apple. And Tony had offered it back. He had no need for immortality, the engineer had said, for he had Extremis and a new version of Erskine's formula, and maybe he wouldn't live as long as Loki would, but it was better than nothing. Right? Loki hadn't agreed, and they had fought, and the words that echoed the loudest were Loki's own.

"I will not watch you die, Tony! I will not stand here and wait for you to die."

"Then don't," Tony had told him, voice quieter than before though no less angry. "Leave."

"You leave!" Loki had hissed back. He hadn't thought the mortal would, this being his home rather than Loki's, but Tony had nodded slowly once and turned his back on _them_. Loki didn't wait around for Tony to come back home, despite knowing he would soon with apologies on his tongue and remorse dripping from his very pore like sweat. Loki saw no reason to wait, because waiting would not change Anthony's mind. They might make up, have sex, or cuddle, Tony might lie and tell Loki he'd think about it, but that wouldn't change the fact that Tony didn't want to spend eternity with him. So Loki left too, and unlike Tony he didn't come back.

_XXX_

It was hard to remain on Midgard and not give into the urge to visit Stark Tower. Anthony was on the television, the radio, the news, in the papers: it was impossible to avoid him. People spoke about him in hushed whispers as Loki walked through the streets and parks of Manhattan, talking of another failed relationship and his spiral back into the bottom of a bottle. Loki had to bite his tongue to keep from responding, or from demanding they speak further so that he may know what was happening to his lover (ex-lover, he had to remind himself each time).

It was hard to walk away, but he did because he had to. A clean break was better for the both of them. It was cruel to consider going back to Anthony, because Anthony would die and he would not and neither of them should have to live through that.

Loki did them both a favour when he went back to Asgard.

_XXX_

Thor seemed to be everywhere at once. Always in Loki's face, blathering on about Tony this and Stark that. Listing the times he had been injured since Loki left (once by his own hands, Jane had added softly, though Thor was quick to mention it hadn't been deliberate). He spoke of Tony missing him, Tony loving him, Tony asking after him. As he spoke, Loki only stood silently, biting his tongue to keep it still because he refused to ask, refused to allow himself to care, because it was better that way. It would hurt less to loose Anthony now than in twenty, or thirty, years when the mortal died. Maybe fifty years, if the serum worked, true, but Loki had thousands of years left in him yet.

Jane had been overjoyed at the thought of the Tony Stark coming to live in Asgard with her, and she was as persistent as Thor in her attempts to repair their relationship. Loki was less likely to listen to her, but he was also not as quick to frighten her off with magic and violence. Eventually, it became too hard to remain in Asgard too. His mother was no longer there, and Odin only tolerated him at the behest of Thor (who was still blabbering on about how much the Man of Iron missed his company at night: awkward), and Loki had no friends that had not been successfully driven off. Heimdallr was there, and Heimdallr could see everything, but Heimdallr hated Loki enough to lie; even if he didn't, Loki could not bring himself to appear weak enough to need to know, so he did not ask.

Instead, he travelled. To Jötunheimr, where all he could think about was how much Tony would enjoy studying the climate changes, and the colour of Loki's true skin against the snow. To Alfheimr, where Tony would have had a blast, partying through the night with the Light Elves, looking resplendent in robes to match Loki's own. To Vanaheimr, where Amora had found him drinking the tavern dry because there was nowhere in the nine realms that allowed him to forget Stark's face. They had fought. Loki had won, but instead of crowing over his victory as he once would have, he tucked tail and ran.

_XXX_

Amora found him, huddled at the base of a tree, hidden on the Isle of Silence. Here, no one could speak to him and remind him of Anthony, nor tell him that the mortal loved him still (when Loki knew that he couldn't, else he would have chosen to stay). In the silence, there was only Loki's voice, echoing through his head, repeated in a constant loop that would surely drive him mad before old age could claim his lover. "You leave" it said, again and again, and in his mind's eye Tony did. Again and again. And Loki kept letting him.

"You should go back, Loki," Amora told him softly, after she had broken the spell that kept the Isle silent. "You really should."

"He does not love me." She didn't ask him to elaborate, but he did anyway. All the while Loki kept his head down and his voice soft (mostly to spare his ears that had grown used to silence). "If he loved me he would have chosen to become immortal and remain with me."

"The Queen died, but she loves you no less for not spending eternity with her." Loki narrowed his eyes at Amora, finally glancing up from the hands that twisted and twined in his lap. "Just as your mortal loves you, despite his lack of time with you. But he is mortal, Loki. He's not made for eternity, and he would have hated you in time for forcing it upon him. He has always loved you, and your hiding here does not make you love him less, does it?"

"No," the God admitted softly, ducking his head again to hide the very beginnings of tears that lurked about the corners of his eyes. "I love him."

"Then go to him."

"Why are you here?" Loki asked, standing and brushing himself clean of the leaves and debris that clung to him.

"King Thor sent me." She used the title purposely, and allowed her lips to curve into a smirk as Loki's head snapped up fast enough to hurt. "King Odin has abdicated the throne. You've been here for some time now, Loki. You've missed the birth of your second nephew."

"Twins?" Loki questioned, for it was the only way Jane could have had two children in the time he had been gone. "Abdication?" He snorted bitterly at the thought of Odin relinquishing the throne once Loki was safely away from Asgard, unable to interfere. "How long did he wait, hmm, a month, two? Until he was sure I wouldn't return? Nine at least, since they have whelped."

"At least," the enchantress agreed. There was something sad in the tone of her voice that made Loki's anger turn cold and heavy. Dread settled in the pit of his stomach, his heart lodged in his throat, and again those words echoed through his mind as Anthony walked out of the room and closed the door behind himself.

"I have not been gone that long, Amora. You jest," the trickster decided, ignoring the worries that suddenly plagued him. "Anthony has not been injured?"

"He has not been, no. But Thor thought you might want to see him once more." Loki nodded, but kept silent. It was true, and she knew it was. Neither of them needed to speak, but as Loki teleported away from the Isle, Amora warned him. "You have been gone for a long, long time, Loki."

He didn't hear her.

_XXX_

They had sent Amora because when they were younger Thor could remember Amora finding Loki when even their parents could not. Again, she found him, dragged him from his hiding place and brought his brother home. This time, not to Asgard but, to the Avengers Tower, where a plaque had been added to the wall in honour of Clint Barton who had been killed in service nineteen years ago, and a group of teenagers in spandex costumes roamed the halls like wild animals on a hunt. They were loud and sloppy and they stared at Loki in wide eyed awe as he passed them.

Thor had greeted him on the roof, and Amora had followed him from the Isle of Silence a minute after he arrived, and together the three of them made their way through once familiar hallways that looked nothing as they should. Loki glanced at the photographs that lined the hallway that led to Tony's bedroom. The one of the two of them sleeping on the couch was still there, snapped by Natasha after a team movie night; around it were new ones, faces that Loki didn't recognize and one in particular that he did but couldn't quite believe. Tony looked so old, ten years older than he should, then twenty, then thirty, as the photos became more recent. Eventually Tony stopped being in them; now they were costumed teenagers that Loki didn't know and couldn't name, Steve and Thor and Natasha looking as they always had, with a man with one arm and a caption 'the last original Avengers'.

"What?" Loki asked quietly, almost unheard by the others. He wasn't sure if he wanted an answer, but he asked anyway. "How long have I been gone?"

"I've been looking for you for fifty years, brother. You have been gone a long time, too long."

Loki couldn't form the words to respond. His silver tongue truly had turned to lead (such a shame Fandral wasn't around to witness it), and he bit it as his jaw snapped shut, half formed words vanishing as his mind clouded from shock. A huff of air left him, intended to be a question, but Thor couldn't decipher it and Loki didn't repeat it. Instead, he pushed passed Jane and all but ran along the corridor until he reached the door to the room he once shared with Tony. Without knocking, he twisted the handle clean off, fingers crushing it into a useless lump of metal as the door swung open and someone Loki didn't recognise greeted him from the bed.

"Look what the cat dragged in," the old man said. His voice was firm, but soft. There was no tremble, no hesitancy or stutter, nothing to belay his age, but the wrinkles on his face and the mop of grey hair that had thinned upon his head were enough to convince Loki's eyes of what they saw. His arms were thin and his fingers trembled as Tony held out hand out towards him.

Without thinking, Loki came forward to reach him, long thin fingers curling around Tony's bony ones. "Anthony?" He questioned, wanting someone to tell him he was wrong in his assumption. "Have I truly been gone so long?"

"Time moves differently upon the Isle, brother," Thor informed him softly. Loki refused to remember the last time he had been there, how long it had seemed and how long it had _been_ until Amora set him free against Odin's wishes. Like Helheimr, time passed slower, and he had forgotten in his anger and grief and then been too cowardly to think on it further.

"You left," Loki accused. He wanted to blame Tony, wanted to blame anyone but himself, because if Tony had loved him (loved _him_ despite not wanting immortality, in spite of his own immortality) then Loki had wasted so much of their time. The mortal had lived longer than he should have: as promised, Tony got another fifty odd years out of his life, from Extremis and his reformulated formula. With Loki's help, they could have made it last a little longer, or they could have enjoyed their time together so that when Tony was ready to die, neither of them would have regrets at the end. Now, instead, Loki was overwhelmed by them.

He sat on the edge of Tony's bed, mindful of the wires that were attached to his arms and chest.

"You told me to. When I came back, you were gone, and I couldn't find you." Tony started to cough, and Thor was quicker than Loki (more used to the action, he supposed), handing over a plastic cup filled with water before Tony could ask for one. In his other hand, three pills were dwarfed by the size of his fingers, before carefully being poured into Tony's outstretched hand.

"I did not want to watch you die."

"Then you should probably leave again. You came back just in time for the main show, Lokes."

The God sniffed, loudly and pathetically. But he was beyond caring that others could see him. He was tired of running, and of hiding and of pretending everything was well. Nothing was well, nothing ever would be again. "I do not want to leave you."

Tony used one shoulder to shrug; the arm on the other side handing back the empty cup to Thor after he had taken his pills. "I never wanted you to leave," he said simply. His eyes were watery and pale, poor imitations of what they used to be. No fire burned behind them now, no steel stiffened his spine, and the shine that Tony had coating him like armour was all worn away. He was no longer Iron Man, but an old man. And he was dying.

"I won't leave," Loki promised. He had left once before, angry and afraid because of a misunderstanding, and he had missed so much of the life that they could have had together. There was no way to replace that, to reclaim those lost years, nor could he do anything to save Tony now: it was far too late for a golden apple to have any effect. Not unless Tony wanted to continue for eternity as an old man, growing progressively older each century.

If he could not have a life with Tony, then Loki would share his death. If Loki begged her enough, Hela might take them both when Anthony's time came.

**The End**

And that is a wrap. No more frostironmonth prompts. Back to regularly scheduled prompt fills and now WIP updates. Except the frostironbang and the Frostiron fest gift exchange.


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